This is a piece of 'flash fiction'. The task (set in my local writers group) was to write a complete story in around 150 words. There had to be reference to the workhouse.
SWILL
Samuel Wilkins was a brute - a vile bully. The children called him Swill – the very name conveying a sense of evil.
Only the workhouse head was permitted to administer corporal punishment, but Swill was never challenged. Even the staff found him intimidating. A lesson rarely passed when a boy wasn’t thrashed.
‘Unbutton’, commanded Wilkins. The trembling victim was bent over a desk and given several heavy blows with a birch rod. Usually, by the third blow, a crimson line of blood appeared across the boy’s buttocks.
One afternoon, Wilkins singled out an older boy for punishment.
‘Unbutton’.
‘No Sir’, the boy defiantly replied.
Incandescent with rage, the teacher grabbed his victim and forced him over a desk. Before he could raise his weapon a group of the bigger boys leapt onto Wilkins. Using his own stick, they beat him until his animal roars turned to deep moans and eventually a pathetic whimpering.
The boys returned to their desks. They watched whilst the broken, humiliated man slowly raised himself, stumbling out of the room - and their lives.
